Do Not Fear Strong Men
Do not fear strong men. Fear weak men; they will cause more harm through their failures than the strong will ever cause by their successes.
— jonolan
While strong people have the will and the powers to directly effect change their strength has a basis in action and therefore must be brought to bear on a subject to be effective. The actions of the strong can be tracked and in most cases predicted. This allows a person to either adapt to- or mitigate any personally harmful effects from the actions of the strong.
Weak people do not have the will and the powers to directly effect change, but they have a nearly immeasurable capacity to cause harm to those around them through either their attempts to take action or their complete failure to take any action at all. Attempting to predict or mitigate the harmful effects of such failures is exceedingly difficult and consumes much of the efforts of any society.
Strength must be measured by both will and power and must always be viewed within the context of the given situation and environment. A thug with a handgun and the will to use it may well be considered strong in the immediate context of a mugging, but that same thug must be considered weak in the context of his society because he lacks the will and power to effect any changes on that scale.
In the alley the thug’s power can be adapted to or mitigated in many ways depending on the training, fitness and preparedness of his potential victims. On the other hand, the negative effects of this thug’s weakness and resulting failed actions and failures to act on the society as whole are far harder to accurately predict and to mitigate.
Tags: Philosophy
December 11th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Weak people do not have the will and the powers to directly effect change, but they have a nearly immeasurable capacity to cause harm to those around them through either their attempts to take action or their complete failure to take any action at all.
Is weakness primary determined by will/intention or must it also be determined simultaneously with power/strength/ability?
December 11th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
All variables affecting the capability of a person to effect change would have to be taken into account. I supply the caveat however, that Will can offset a great deal of temporal limitations.
December 11th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I heartily agree!!!